What's Up at Focal Point

By Jacklyn Fennessey

Focal Point, Information Builders’ online community of developers, has experienced explosive growth over the past few months largely due to the recent Summit 2004 User Conference in New Orleans. The Focal Point booth was undeniably one of the more popular booths in the Solutions Pavilion. The following is a more detailed look at the recent attention Focal Point has garnered and what’s new with this emerging online community.

During Summit, Focal Point received about 100 new registrations for the site’s bulletin board. The registrations came from various companies spanning many industries. Many representatives from American Express have taken an avid interest in Focal Point as well as Lockheed Martin, MCI, Target, US Bank, and Verizon, to name a few. The highest response with regards to industry has come from the fields of banking, education, government, and healthcare.

Activity at Focal Point has grown consistently since we launched the community, as more and more people log on to post questions as well as responses. Recent hot topics have included spacing within different fields and data sorting options.

To expand on the new subscription e-mail option that has been implemented with Focal Point, users will soon be able to receive new topic notifications (versus all posts, i.e., topics and subsequent replies).

Focal Point is a growth community, as new members register daily to participate in the customer-to-customer discussions that take place there.